But others defended both the Demand model, which employs a vast network of low-paid freelancers to crank out simple reference articles, and the content itself. Commenter richardmorgan2011 semi-praised one of the stories I'd singled out for mockery:

The article on push buttons** would be fine for someone who actually needed to know about digital flush buttons. Granted, I don’t know why that would be necessary, but if I understand the way that Demand Media operates, there have been quite a few queries on search engines about types of push buttons and the information provided would definitely have answered my question.

My bubble of scornful superiority punctured, I circled back to re-read that article and noticed that it does indeed contain some detailed and sophisticated information -- surprisingly sophisticated, in fact, for an entry that's otherwise so inane. Suspiciously sophisticated, you might even say.
So I took one of the more sophisticated passages -- "In industrial and commercial applications, push buttons can be linked together by a mechanical linkage so that the act of pushing one button causes the other button to be released" -- and plugged it into Google.

As you probably guessed by now, that entire paragraph -- and most of the entry in question, in fact -- was plagiarized. From the Wikipedia entry for "Push-Button." (I checked an old revision of the article to be sure that the plagiarism didn't go in the other direction.)

To recap: I selected seven eHow articles, looking not for evidence of plagiarism but merely for silliness. One of them turned out to contain plagiarized material. (Incidentally, two others were evidently so embarrassing to the company that they've since been removed from the site.) Is it sheer dumb luck that I stumbled on the one-in-1,000 Demand story that happens to be ripped off? That seems unlikely.

I contacted Demand's PR department to ask what stops they take to prevent plagiarism. A spokesman couldn't comment, since the company's in the midst of its SEC-mandated quiet period*, but he did direct me to Demand's contributors' agreement, its ethics policy, and twoposts meant to help contributors understand plagiarism. According to CJR, Demand also uses software from a firm called iThenticate to screen out pilfered language: "Demand has even integrated iThenticate into its content management system."

Perhaps -- but clearly it's not a perfect solution. If Demand is going to justify its $1.5 billion valuation, it needs to show that it has automated, effective systems in place to prevent this sort of thing. The honor rule's not good enough.